33 82% 38% 0mph windroseE dewpoint28 bar steady Ordinary Time New Moon
First snow. After a scatter of flakes, a beady snow dropped onto our deck, bouncing before it came to a rest. Didn’t last long, but it was enough. This first snow has a magical quality, a true signal that the theatre of the seasons has changed scenes and scenery. Clouds give the day an intimate quality, the sky closer to the earth. The brown of dead lives and withered perennials has small shadows of white.
This is the time the evergreens begin to stand out. The pachysandra on the third tier under the Colorado Spruce is a nest of shiny green leaves; the cedar trees in our woods stand tall, their flat needles green against the leafless oaks, big-tooth aspens, ash and black locust.
In my northern heart this time, called by the Celts Samain, through to Imbolc, the time when lambs came into the belly in old Ireland, around February 1st, defines me and those who live here. This is our time as summer is the time of Southern California and Arizona, Texas and New Mexico. Part of it is because of what we endure, for them the heat and aridity, for us, the cold and the snow, but it is more, much more, than that. It is the difference between cranking up the snowblower and pushing the button on a power boat, between walking through knee deep snow, exhilirated, and walking through 107 heat refreshed by the mists from those outdoor cooling devices. To my northern heart exhiliration trumps wilting in the heat; but I know that’s my bias, a bias not shared by the hundreds, thousands of Minnesotans who become snowbirds each winter, migrating to warmer climes.
